Ethiopia rules out return to Somalia

ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA - Jan 28 2009 08:20

Ethiopia on Tuesday ruled out sending its troops back to Somalia after hard-line Islamists took over Baidoa, the seat of the country's Parliament, following Addis Ababa's pull-out at the weekend.

"Don't think that Ethiopian troops are ready again to step into Somalia, that is ruled out," Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin told journalists following a regional meeting.

"But we will do everything for Amisom and the Somali institutions to fight anarchy and this terrorist threat inside their country," he added, referring to the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia.

Baidoa, located about 250km north-west of the capital, Mogadishu, was the last town to be vacated by Ethiopian troops.

It soon fell into the hands of al-Shabaab, a military youth wing of the main Islamist movement in the lawless Horn of Africa nation.

Al-Shabaab had relentlessly fought the Ethiopian troops who rolled into Somalia to support a weak transitional government against the Islamist movement in late 2006. -- Sapa-AFP

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